Cerebral Gray and White Matter T2 in Autism Spectrum Disorder

Artru A, Friedman S, Shaw D, Dager S, Dawson G, Petropoulos H

University of Washington

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a clinically defined syndrome with reported enlarged brain volumes. We used quantitative T2 to assess whether accelerated development could account for these volumetric findings. FSE images acquired from children with ASD, developmental delay (DD), and typical development (TD) were segmented into gray matter (GM) and white matter (WM) to produce masks used to calculate T2 for either tissue type. ASD children had prolonged GM T2 compared to TD children. DD children had prolonged GM and WM T2 compared to ASD and TD children. Prolonged GM T2 in ASD may signify abnormalities that are specific to autism.